This is the latest incarnation of Donny and Paul's no till drill. I suppose you are wondering what that is suupposed to mean. Most farmers will prepare the land for planting by plowing, discing and harrowing - about three passes over the field before they bring out the drill and do the planting. That makes a total of four passes over the field. With diesel at about four bucks a gallon, this can get expensive. Additionally, a lot of time is spent going through the four steps. This rig is what the boys are using this year. The first piece is an opener that opens up the ground and drops in fertilizer. The second is the drill (planter) which opens the ground, drops the seeds and closes the ground. The third piece is a trailer which carries the fertilizer. As you might imagine, there are lots of things to be learned in gaining control of this process. Under certain circumstances it works very well. Under others it doesn't work so well. The good news, however, is that none of the problems is insurmountable. The boys have learned a lot and are committed to perfecting the process. As a matter of fact, Paul claims the he doesn't even have a plow.

Ginny's dad (retired farmer) thinks the whole thing is crap. Being from the old school, he figures that if you have one failure with the method, that it has to be crap. Having done a lot of real by-golly research in my life, I can see that the boys are learning and improving. That is what it is all about. Remember, Edison tried thousands of materials to find a suitable filament for his light bulb. That speaks to determination. It also speaks to the difficulty of the "Edisonian" approach. You know, try everyting and hope for a winner. Paul and Donny are actually using the scientific method. You know, hypothesis testing. It is interesting to watch.